


Of Poetry and Valentines

by Aethelflaed



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Bad Poetry, Canon Compliant, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fluff, Happy Ending, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Poetry, Post-Canon, Romance, Secret Admirer, Trying to Confess but Really Bad At It, Victorian, valentines day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22737661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelflaed/pseuds/Aethelflaed
Summary: Crowley can't stand what Valentines Day has become. If he has to look at one more heart-covered cake, he's going to be sick.But it wasn't always that way.Or: Aziraphale receives a series of mysterious, anonymous Valentine's Day cards.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 173
Collections: Ineffable Husbands Week 2020





	Of Poetry and Valentines

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I promised myself no more prompts until I finished the next Sawdust of Words story but...well, I had a rough week and I needed to do this.
> 
> Written for Ineffable Husbands Week 2020; first prompt: Valentine's Day.

_Chocolate Love-A Cake._

_Million Heart Cheesecake._

_Mint-To-Be Chocolate Candies._

Some sort of cupcake simply titled _Heart of the Batter._

Crowley had been standing in Aziraphale’s favorite bakery for over forty-five minutes. He’d stopped even trying to hold up the queue, which now simply flowed around him

Even the pastries without disgustingly twee names were covered in little frosting hearts and other nonsense. Not to mention _all that pink._

“Are you ready to order yet?” asked the girl behind the till, handing yet another customer an absurdly elaborate confection that represented exactly six pounds and thirteen pence worth of _I love you._

“Nh,” Crowley said, glancing at the coffee list. The flavors of the month started with _Cupid Cappuccino_ and it went downhill fast from there. “Euh.”

“I’ll give you five more minutes,” she said, with far more chirpy good cheer than was strictly necessary.

–-

The streets of Soho had been transformed. Paper hearts and cupids in every window; massive displays of roses, orchids, tulips and lilies spilled out in front of every shop, regardless of what they sold; even the nearest pub was covered in bright pink garlands and little red fairy lights.

Did no one in this district have even an _ounce_ of self-respect?

Crowley stepped up to the Bentley and groaned. Someone had tied a red heart balloon to the wing mirror of every car on the street. Someone else had stuck little pink animal and flower shapes all over the windscreens.

The Bentley now sported a paper rabbit with _Some bunny loves you!_ scrawled across it, as well as a large paper flower reading:

> _Roses are red_
> 
> _Violets are blue_
> 
> _Here’s a Valentine_
> 
> _Just for you!_

He pulled them both off and shredded them to confetti, yet all the tiny pieces still managed to look like little hearts. The balloon he transformed into a pink-and-red football and kicked it as far down the street as he could.

Crowley slammed the door of the Bentley as he climbed in, and angrily shoved one of his favorite Wagner CDs into the player. Of course, what emerged was _not_ the prelude to _Das Rheingold_ but Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

He slapped the radio off and glared at the dashboard. “Cut that out. I swear to Someone, if you even _try_ and pull that on me today…”

Leaving the threat to hang in the air, he turned the radio back on and skipped to the second song, which was now “March of the Black Queen.”

“Better,” he muttered, and pulled away from the kerb.

–-

Aziraphale had never taken to Valentine’s Day, no more than any other saint’s feast day, in any case. He hadn’t commented at all when, almost six centuries ago, it had been co-opted by certain European courts as a day of romance.

Crowley, on the other hand, dove right into it, reveled in it: the poetry, the elaborate tournaments, the sighing tales of courtly love. He was in his element.

After all, a celebration of love might be considered Heavenly, but a day devoted to pageantry and dramatic empty gestures? With an undercurrent of lust masked by a noble myth of pure adoration? That sounded downright demonic.

At least, that’s what he told Head Office. Humans, as always, did ninety percent of the work. Crowley simply observed and dropped a few well-placed suggestions. The poetry got worse, the eloquent love declarations more empty.

By 1800, the exchange of awful verse and sappy greetings in mid-February had become so entrenched in English society that printers had begun to mass-produce cards for the holiday. By 1835, thousands of Valentines – store bought or handmade – were sent through the post every year.

A few more whispered words into the right ears. In 1840, postal rates across the kingdom dropped, and the first postage stamp was introduced. The next February, four hundred thousand Valentines Day cards were mailed all around the country – and, thanks to the changes in the postal system, they could now be sent anonymously.

–-

On the thirteenth of February, 1841, an envelope was delivered to A.Z. Fell & Co. Bookshop – there was no sender’s address, no salutation, just a number and street name, hastily scribbled. Inside was a simple piece of white card, covered enthusiastically but inexpertly with white lace; pasted in the center, framed by a heart, was a printed image, a bouquet of red roses and blue forget-me-nots. Below, a bit of gold ribbon surrounded a single word: _Devotion._

“I don’t know, Angel,” Crowley grumbled when Aziraphale showed it to him. “Could be anyone. Could be one of your customers. Maybe one of them has a thing for rude shopkeepers.”

“I don’t think so,” Aziraphale said, turning the card over to study the pattern of the lace. “There’s something very familiar about it…”

“Familiar?” Crowley demanded sharply.

“I mean, the sender is being very familiar with the recipient. As if they’d known each other a long time.” He ran his finger across the single word. “Perhaps it was misdirected?”

“Nrg.” Crowley shrugged.

In 1842, another envelope arrived. This one held a pre-printed card, a single flower on a pink-and-gold background. A bright red heart, tucked behind a pink ribbon, carried the message:

> _Paeonia, symbol of happiness sublime_
> 
> _Wilt thou be my Valentine?_

More pre-printed cards followed.

In 1843, two birds built a nest, filled with hearts instead of eggs.

In 1846, a couple strolling through a watercolor landscape under the words _Valentine Greetings._

In 1849, a little girl in a white dress with a basket of roses, and the words _With True Love._

In 1852, the angels started appearing. The first was surrounded by morning glories and gold filigree. _Loving Greeting._

1853 brought back the lace and forget-me-nots, surrounding a winged figure wrapped in flowing gauze and little else. _With Love and Devotion._

In 1854, a chubby cupid crossed a serene lake in a white-and-gold boat filled with pink roses; a line of white swans bridled with more roses pulled it along. _Love’s Message to my Valentine._

“They’re just pre-printed messages,” Crowley pointed out in 1856. “They don’t _mean_ anything. Whoever sent it probably just picked one that looked nice.”

“Oh, no, there’s real feeling behind it, I’m sure. Look at this.” It was the most elaborate yet: white lace, roses, hearts, a dove delivering a heart-covered envelope to a little angel, white ribbon framing a poem, tied in a perfect bow.

Crowley rolled his whole head in an exaggerated gesture. “Trying _way_ too hard,” was all he said.

“Are you jealous?” Aziraphale asked with a grin.

“Jealous? What, that you get sappy misdirected mail? No, I’m fine without.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips, studying first Crowley, then the card. “Sixteen years? Without missing one? Surely it must be intentional.”

“Angel, a million of those are sent every year. There has to be some mistakes in all that.”

“Perhaps you’re right…” His eyes ran across the poem one more time.

> _May this bow of white_
> 
> _Which gives delight_
> 
> _And which I send to you_
> 
> _A token be_
> 
> _Of love divine_
> 
> _Oh, will’t thou be_
> 
> _My Valentine?_

“Truly horrible verse,” Crowley muttered. “Does that even scan?”

1857 saw the return of the hand-made cards. Skillfully cut paper, lace, ribbons, flowers – sometimes painted, sometimes embroidered onto linen. Pre-made pieces, painstakingly glued together with endearing imperfection. The messages were short, but hand-written: _To My Star. Valentine Greeting. Love Always._

“They have different handwriting,” Crowley pointed out. “Different senders.”

“I suppose,” Aziraphale conceded. “Unless the sender is disguising their handwriting.”

“Wh-what? Why would anyone do that?”

“I don’t know. But look – all the ribbons are pasted on exactly the same way.”

Crowley squinted at three different cards. “I don’t see it,” he said flatly. “I think it’s your imagination. Do you _want_ a secret admirer?”

“No,” Aziraphale started slowly, glancing at Crowley from the corner of his eyes. “No, on the whole I’d rather have an admirer I knew.”

“Mh. Why do you keep those, anyway?”

“Oh, I love a mystery.” Aziraphale felt the grin slide across his face. “Anonymous cards, mailed to my shop every Valentines Day for almost twenty years? Simply irresistible, wouldn’t you say?”

Crowley, apparently, had nothing at all to say.

In 1862, the poetry returned, pre-printed again but at least somewhat better verse. Around a watercolor that was possibly meant to depict Romeo and Juliet:

> _I may wander over land and sea_
> 
> _Pass many days away from thee_
> 
> _Yet my heart can never rove_
> 
> _From thee, my own, my love._

Aziraphale professed it was his favorite yet, but Crowley only scowled.

–-

The greatest shock was the card that arrived in 1864.

Aziraphale had not expected anything that year. The envelope sat in his hands, as simple and anonymous as all the others. Inside, an almost embarrassingly adorable kitten gazed out from a heart-shaped frame of red.

> _This little kitten,_
> 
> _Valentine,_
> 
> _Has come to ask you_
> 
> _To be mine._

He suddenly realized he had made a grave miscalculation. If these cards were still arriving after…after certain recent developments…that could only mean…

Well. At least Crowley was no longer around to realize what a foolish conclusion he’d jumped to.

Another print arrived in 1865, a young lady holding a tulip to her nose.

> _Oh! Would I were the flower that sips_
> 
> _The honied kisses from your lips._
> 
> _My Darling Valentine._

The card tumbled from his trembling fingers.

Why? Why did he even bother opening it? Why did he keep them even now?

Aziraphale grabbed all twenty-five Valentine’s Day cards and thrust them into a box. He found a spot on the highest shelf of the bookcase furthest from the door, tucked the box into a corner so gloomy even he could barely spot it. He was absolutely determined to forget any cards had ever arrived.

The envelope that came through his mail slot in 1866 was tucked, unopened, into a thick volume of Greek philosophy and pushed back onto a dusty shelf. Aziraphale swore no matter how many more arrived, he would never look.

But, as if a spell were broken, no more Valentines appeared after that. And the last one remained unopened for over seventy-five years.

Until, two nights after a certain incident in a church, he found it again, hands shaking from the exertion of the search, from the unnamed emotions racing through him.

The card inside was gold and silver lace, simple yet elegant in a way he hadn’t remembered the others being. There was an earnest charm to the way the edges didn’t quite line up to the white paper underneath. In the center, a printed poem, surrounded by hand-painted flowers in more varieties than Aziraphale could name.

> _Valentine –_
> 
> _Fain would I guard thee through life’s desert drear_
> 
> _And fling around thee love to soothe and cheer_
> 
> _For thee I live might I but call thee mine_
> 
> _I’d be forever thy own Valentine._

He didn’t know how it was possible, but only one being in all Creation would send such a poem.

Aziraphale sat down on the floor of his shop. The tears he’d been holding in for two days finally began to fall.

–-

After Crowley woke from his extended nap, he was disgusted to find how the holiday had spiraled out of control, how it only grew worse with every passing decade. Chocolates. Jewelry. Mass-market commercialization. It became a million-pound industry, and eventually a billion-pound one. Where once hopeful lovers could send a chintzy greeting card for a few pennies, the fools now spent a week’s pay – or more – on useless trinkets, somehow convinced it would ensure a return of affection.

And the engagements! The diamond rings, the elaborate proposals.

It was an absolute mockery of the cheap, empty exchange of sentiments he had spent so long cultivating. Was _nothing_ sacred?

He was sure the Americans were to blame.

And yet now, when the holiday was devoid even of the anti-meaning Crowley had worked so hard to endow it with, _now_ Aziraphale took notice? Now he began decorating his shop with angels even more absurd than the ones he usually collected? Now he put vases full of dried flowers on every table – roses and carnations and tulips in pink and red and white?

Every year, the traditions grew worse, yet Aziraphale only embraced the holiday more.

–-

The Apocalypse had come and gone. The world had changed. For eight months they’d stood on the cusp of… _something._

It was absurd. They each knew how the other felt – there was no denying it at this point – but somehow, after six thousand years, Crowley suddenly couldn’t find a way to say the words. Now it was _Aziraphale_ waiting patiently on _him,_ and if that wasn’t embarrassing, he didn’t know what was.

Crowley just needed the right time. The moment when the words could tumble easily from his lips, the way they always could in his mind. He’d hoped Valentine’s Day could be it.

But here it was, the fourteenth of February, and all Crowley felt was fed up. He couldn’t bring himself to buy the overpriced flowers, the punfully-named treats, even a racy gag gift (of which there was never any shortage in Soho). It just felt…empty.

He walked into the bookshop and prepared to disappoint his angel.

–-

Aziraphale had set up a garland of sorts, too, but not paper flowers or bright red crepe paper. Across the two pillars nearest the door – where no one entering the shop could miss them, let alone Crowley – hanging from a string, were twenty-six Victorian Valentine’s Day cards.

Some were handmade – clumsy and uneven. Some were pre-printed – cheap, mass-produced. All were just a little tacky, but in the light of the shop, they seemed to glow.

“Ah! You’re here.” Aziraphale emerged with a pile of 19th-century romance novels, which he proceeded to arrange on the front table, to more easily chase customers away from them. “How do you like my decorating?”

“Oh. Uh. You. You kept those.”

“Naturally.” He didn’t even turn away from his task. “They were sent by someone very important to me.”

Crowley gulped. “You worked that out, then?”

“Yes, dear, in 1843.” Aziraphale chuckled, standing a copy of _Wuthering Heights_ on the top of his display.

“Uh…Nh…” Crowley felt his face getting very warm. “You could have said –”

“I assumed, at the time, this was the beginning of some very elaborate prank on your part, and I was curious to see where it might go.”

“You – you said it was a mystery!”

“Yes, that was me playing along.” Satisfied with his display, Aziraphale turned back. “Now, if we’re finally going to talk about this, I do have a question.”

Crowley shoved his hands into his pockets and shuffled his feet. No avoiding this, it seemed. “Fine. Right. I wanted to tell you how I felt, but it was…it was too much. Too big.” He looked at the ceiling as he talked, the walls, anywhere but at the angel who was now watching him with rapt attention. “You’d just reject it, and I didn’t want that kind of…y’know. So I just – I devalued what it means to say…that…on Valentine’s Day. Made it cheap and easy and meaningless so that when I told you, maybe it wouldn’t seem so big. Maybe it wouldn't be so hard. Maybe you’d be able to accept it. Or at least the rejection wouldn’t hurt as much.”

Soft footsteps across the floorboards, and Aziraphale’s hand on his cheek, drawing his face back down to meet that blue gaze.

“I know. I worked that out, oh, seventy years ago.”

“You _what?”_

“Once I understood how you felt, well, it seemed rather obvious. I also know why it never worked.”

Crowley hadn’t felt this completely lost since the night the world had almost ended. He reached up and grasped Aziraphale’s hand for balance. “Please…enlighten me.”

“Crowley, dear. A meaningless bit of frippery bought for a few pennies? A quiet _I love you_ disguised as a joke? That’s not who you are. You need a big, grand show of affection, a blazing banner across the sky, or it won’t ever feel _real_ to you. So even when I told you I _liked_ the cards, you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. The holiday was all wrong.”

“Thanks,” Crowley grumbled.

“Well, I was going to say something when you next sent me a card, only you never did. And so I, well, I decided to encourage the humans to, as you say, ‘go bigger.’ I thought you wouldn’t be able to resist a culture of grand romantic gestures. Only I’m not very subtle and it got rather out of hand.”

Behind his glasses, Crowley blinked.

“So…all – all _that,”_ Crowley waved a hand at the window. “All that was _you?”_

“Oh, yes.” He smiled apologetically, though the bastard had probably never been sorry a day in his life. “The holiday generally, and also more specifically the state of Soho just now. I’ve been rather giddy lately and it seems to have gone contagious.”

Crowley thought of everything the day had come to mean – the heart-shaped sweets, the over-the-top dinners, flowers that cost as much as an outfit, jewelry that cost as much as a car. Piles of gifts of every description, sky-diving marriage proposals, holiday getaways to Paris or Florence or tiny cottages in snow-filled forests.

“Aziraphale,” he laughed, found he couldn’t _stop_ laughing. “Angel! You…you made a whole holiday of big, stupid, over-the-top romantic gestures for _me?”_

“Only because you started it.” He slipped his arms around Crowley’s neck, pulling them together, resting his head on Crowley’s shoulder. “Happy Valentine’s Day, dear.”

Crowley wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s hips, pressing their bodies close. The words he wanted to say danced on the edge of his tongue, almost spoken. _Not yet, not yet._ Instead he asked, “Didn’t you have a question?”

“Ah, yes. How did you do it?” Aziraphale pulled back enough to look up at his eyes. “The last three cards arrived while you were asleep.”

“Oh! That’s easy enough.” His hands found their way into Aziraphale’s and, without anyone needing to suggest it out loud, they walked together to the back room and the well-worn sofa, where a bottle of wine waited for them. “I didn’t want to lose my nerve, so I would buy and send the cards five at a time. I gave the post office instructions to mail them one per year. I told myself each time, ‘After the last card, I’ll say it out loud.’ But, well, I always wound up buying more cards.”

Aziaphale froze two steps away from the sofa. “Are you saying you haven’t bought me a Valentine since 1861? This is outrageous.”

Crowley rolled his eyes, flinging himself down and pulling Aziraphale after him. “Have you seen what passes for romantic verse these days? Pathetic. I’m not going to pay…five pounds or whatever it is for that nonsense.”

“Mmm.” Aziraphale shifted to lean against him, flashing another smile. “I suppose the card selection has been disappointing lately. Still, an angel likes a _little_ poetry now and again.”

“Poetry, is it?” Crowley pulled off his glasses and tossed them aside so he could meet that breathtaking blue gaze straight on. Caught one of Aziraphale’s hands and held it to his chest. The words that had sat at the edge of his tongue for longer than he could remember made way for something bigger, something more his style.

> _Women have loved before as I love now;_
> 
> _At least, in lively chronicles of the past –_
> 
> _Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow_
> 
> _Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast_
> 
> _Much to their cost invaded – here and there,_
> 
> _Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,_
> 
> _I find some woman bearing as I bear_
> 
> _Love like a burning city in the breast._
> 
> _I think however that of all alive_
> 
> _I only in such utter, ancient way_
> 
> _Do suffer love; in me alone survive_
> 
> _The unregenerate passions of a day_
> 
> _When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread,_
> 
> _Heedless and willful, took their knights to bed._

“Oh,” Aziraphale murmured. “Well, that’s hardly appropriate for a card.”

Crowley tried to raise Aziraphale’s hand to his lips, but discovered he was shaking too much. “It’s – You’re probably right. But it’s how I’ve felt. For a very long time.”

Aziraphale pulled his hand back, then leaned in to softly brush his lips against Crowley’s. Hesitant. Shy. But when he finished, he didn’t pull back. Crowley could feel the trembling of Aziraphale’s breath, mirroring his own.

“I love you, too,” his angel whispered. “I hope you know that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I promise I'll get back to work on my main series soon (I'm half-done two first drafts and keep jumping between them. Find me on Tumblr, @AethelflaedLadyofMercia for regular updates.)
> 
> Inspired by the pastries at my local bakery, and by a conversation with @angel-and-serpent 
> 
> All the Victorian Valentines described are actual cards (I tried to do all vintage, but some may have been replicas/modern cards in “Victorian” style), slightly altered to be easier to describe. I also changed a word or two where the poetry was especially bad.
> 
> The Valentines Day history is accurate, but over simplified. I wanted to keep this under 3,000 words, which meant leaving out a lot of nuance and "historians believe," as well as the effects of the Depression, World War II, and rationing on Valentines Day traditions. Also, I still went over 3,000 words.
> 
> The final poem is by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I’ve said many times I default write the Husbands as asexual, but then Crowley goes and picks one of the *sexy* sonnets. I suppose I'll leave where things go from here to reader imagination. (Note: this is pretty mild by Millay's sexy sonnet standards, not to mention all the ones with powerfully overblown professions of love. It was all I could do to keep Crowley from reciting a dozen poems. I can't recommend her poetry enough.)


End file.
